Self Portrait - no sound of water.

Up, Down.

(Course not, Fool! sez Mr. T, too cold out there for water! QED, sez I.)


"Moradores ilhados em pleno asfalto," a headline lifted from Jornal do Brasil. Literally, 'Residents are stranded in full asphalt' - 'full asphalt' or 'right in the middle of the asphalt' needs a bit of explanation maybe, 'asfalto' is a quality of civilized parts of the city, as distinguished from the 'morros' / hills, which are favelas / slums, and consequently uncivilized. An interesting corollary of this land-use pattern is that only the poor, living in the favelas, get a view.




Well, I wish I was
On some Australian mountain range.
Oh, I wish I was
On some Australian mountain range.
I got no reason to be there, but I
Imagine it would be some kind of change.

Bob Dylan, Outlaw Blues, 1965.




What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922.


(Fotos de dunas em Lençóis, Maranhão, Brasil.)


ARIEL canta:

Teu pai está a cinco braças.
Dos ossos nasceu coral,
dos olhos, pérolas baças.
Tudo nele é perenal;
mas em algo peregrino
transforma-o o mar de contínuo
O sino das ninfas soa:
Dim, dim, dão!
Escutai como reboa:
Dim, dim, dão!

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them: Ding-dong, bell.

Proverbs 15:13 A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
Proverbios 15:13 O coração alegre aformoseia o rosto; mas pela dor do coração o espírito se abate.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMA-QbDYGhU

Lone Pilgrim

I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay,
And pensively stood by his tomb,
When in a low whisper I heard something say:
How sweetly I sleep here below.

The tempest may howl and the loud thunder roar
And gathering storms may arise,
But calm is my feeling, at rest is my soul,
The tears are all wiped from my eyes.

The call of my Master compelled me from home,
No kindred or relative nigh.
I met the contagion and sank to the tomb,
My soul flew to mansions on high.

Go tell my companion and children most dear
To weep not for me now I'm gone.
The same hand that led me through seas most severe
Has kindly assisted me home.


THE WHITE PILGRIM'S GRAVE
Written at Johnsonburg, N. J., 1836 by John Ellis about Joseph Thomas.

I came to the spot where White Pilgrim lay
And pensively stood by his tomb
When, in a low whisper, I heard something say:
"How sweetly I sleep here alone.

"The tempest may howl and the loud thunders roll
And gathering storms may arise;
Yet calm are my feelings, at rest is my soul,
The tears are all wiped from my eyes.

"The cause of my Master impelled me from home,
I bade my companion farewell:
I left my sweet children who for me now mourn,
In far distant regions to dwell.

I wandered an exile and stranger below,
To publish salvation abroad;
The trump of the gospel endeavor to blow,
Inviting poor sinners to God.

"But when among strangers, and far from my home,
No kindred or relative nigh,
I met the contagion and sank in the tomb,
My spirit to mansions on high.

"Go tell my companion and children most dear,
To weep not for Joseph, though gone;
The same hand that led me through scenes dark and drear,
Has kindly conducted me home."

Down.